


beverly hills cop theme song

by twinsters



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, M/M, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:12:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6462622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinsters/pseuds/twinsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall and Harry are cops. (Not in Beverly Hills.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	beverly hills cop theme song

Niall’s sat forward in his seat watching a mother and her little girl cross the street hand in hand - jaywalking, but you know, he’s not Liam, he’s not going to say anything - when Harry taps on the roof of the cruiser. Niall unlocks the doors and Harry piles into his seat with his usual grace, all long legs and strangely short hair. Back in their academy days, Harry swore he’d never cut it. Harry still reaches up as if to push it back when he finally arranges his legs under the dash, his cheeks a little pink despite the fact that April’s dawning outside.

“Did you get the good kind?” Niall asks, knows well that Harry will have.

Harry huffs, right on cue, and says, “Of course.” The paper box of donuts is bright pink and the clerk from the donut shop has written, “ _Have a nice day, boys! :)”_ inside the lid for them.

Serious cops, they are, Niall thinks with relish. Harry has gotten the bear claws Niall loves so much. Niall takes a big bite out of one and goes back to staring at the bank across the street with professional interest. They have to take every threat, even the ones that seem like a fourteen year-old made them, seriously. So here Niall and Harry are, on stakeout till someone comes to put them back on patrol duty. Harry hums a little while he eats. He clocks as much time in the gym as Niall does going over case reports, not ‘cos he doesn’t love food but because he does. Today feels like just another part of a routine. Niall’s both contented and worried about it. Afraid of getting comfortable.

Their town is small enough that not much happens, a robbery here or there, nothing big like the murder scenes that they’re most likely to hear at the west end. He supposes after the police academy it was pure luck that both him and Harry were assigned to precinct one instead of separate branches - the ease of being so familiar with your partner makes the day go by faster. Even if the threat of an unlikely heist is looming over their heads.

Harry drinks out of his clear cup of lemonade sipping on the neon pink straw, Niall knows he must’ve requested, when he says around it, “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

Niall heaves a long drawn out sigh, pushing back in his seat, “Oh, boy, that’s never good.”

“Rude,” Harry rolls his eyes, taking another long sip of his icy drink, the tiny droplets misting over the plastic. “We’ve never been employee of the months, like, it is always y’know, the wonder twins.”

Niall hums, his attention whisked away by the stout man with a nervy look on his face, hesitantly walking towards the bank. He’s carrying a black backpack, the strap clinging to his shoulders, and is wearing running shoes, but no gym clothes. Interesting.

“C’mon,” Harry laughs. He elbows Niall, gently, in the side. Harry’s always doing that by accident or on purpose; it’s a strange day when Niall doesn’t have Harry digging his bony fingers or elbows or even his toes into Niall’s ribs or gut or his skinny calves. The first time they’d hooked up, he’d come away with an egg-sized bruise on his head. Couldn’t even remember getting it. He pats mindlessly at Harry, gets the top of his knee. Squeezes for good luck. Broad springtime sunshine pours in through their cracked windows and brings out the blond highlights in Harry’s chocolate brown hair. The air smells sweet and flowery from the park on the other side of the road. 

The fella nearing the bank stops and crouches down to do up his laces. When he stands, Niall recognizes him. Mr. Orvark, the elementary science teacher. Niall’s relaxing back into his seat with one hand on Harry and the other holding a bear claw without further thought.

It’s not all guts and glory, this job. Only sometimes Niall thinks it’d be cool if it was. It sure seems to be for those goddamn bastards Payne and Tommo. _They_ have their own massive undercover drugs op going on.

“I know you’ve been aiming for employee of the month since we were in the academy,” Harry prattles on. He eats with the pink donut box in his lap, otherwise he’d get frosted sugar flakes all over himself. When Niall glances at him, Harry’s smiling like a squirrel with his cheeks packed full of food, and Niall’s heart gives an unguarded twinge. “We’ll get it,” Harry assures him.

Niall curls his fingers around the steering wheel. He checks the mirror and spots the next team pulling up, partners Pinnock and Edwards in their own cruiser. Niall turns the engine over and gestures for Harry to put the food away, which Harry does quickly. They both put their sunglasses on and Harry starts in on the Beverly Hills Cop theme song, so they’re both laughing by the time Niall pulls them out into traffic, on their way back to the police station for a debriefing.

The tall trees duck under the splintering sunlight and the drive back is short, one hand steering wheel the other skating up and down Harry’s thigh, aimlessly. They’ve been around one another for so long that the need to fill the pockets of silence doesn’t seem demanding anymore, they instead let it settle in, simmer around until they each have something to say and if not, that is okay too.

Niall pulls into the precinct around 4:30, the parking lot starting to empty of the officers who’ve had morning duty which should mean they’ll be done and out by five the latest. It’s Friday and they didn’t have much time this week to spend back at their apartment with each other so rightly enough Niall is looking forward to it, thankful he doesn’t have to spend overnight doing paperwork that Tommo and Payne refuse to. _Perks of being the chief's favorites,_ Louis had said proceeding to pat Niall’s cheek like he’s a grade schooler. Niall’s not bitter, not one bit, but he is definitely eyeing the gold plaque and the celebratory pictures push pinned on the department cork board. A little competition is healthy, he reckons.

Harry gets out first, Niall pulling open the dashboard compartment to pull out the file for today, opening it to do a quick skim over the papers, and he’s so engrossed that he doesn’t even realize he’s been sitting there making sure everything is perfect before they go in for debriefing. It is only when Harry taps on his window, a knowing smile in place, that Niall unbuckles and opens the door, getting out and locking the cruiser.

“Sorry, just doing a read through,” he chuckles, rubbing a hand over his neck, the cool April breeze licking the his forearms, his hair a mess. Harry nods, leaning forward, and placing a swift kiss to his lips. “I know,” they’re not into public displays of affection, - or, well, Niall isn’t -, but sometimes it is nice.

The job has this air around it, the whole ‘you’ll get jaded as days go by’ and albeit having a rather safe and hardly exciting past couple of years, Niall sees why people think that. There have been people he’s come to know who’ve changed since the start, and it is only normal, but there is something grounding about having the normality that Harry brings into his life. Niall reaches forward, his thumb wiping at the powdered sugar at the corner of Harry’s mouth, and mirrors his smile.

The first time someone pulled a gun out at what was otherwise a pretty average domestic violence case, Niall and Harry went home and wrote up wills. Well, they didn’t call them wills at the time. But Niall knew that’s what they were. He’d sat next to Harry at their tatty little formica table in the tiny kitchen where just that morning they kissed over a sizzling skillet of eggs and written out about what was to be done with his life insurance money, with the last of his student debts, with his funeral costs. It’s not the sort of thing he likes remembering, and most days, he doesn’t think of it at all.

Lately, though. He put everything he had into that document in case of a worst-case scenario, but he hadn’t had a ring then, hadn’t wanted to propose. Now Niall’s worried that it’ll be lost at the back of his sock drawer in case something happens to him, and Harry will never find it, never know about it. Soon, Niall thinks, he’ll ask. The sooner the better. He’s just waiting, like, for the right moment.

They amble into the polite station just as Maurice, who works at the front desk taking down tearful drunk college students’ reports of stolen bus passes and Mr. Robertson’s adamant demands for a police investigation for all of his stolen garden gnomes (it’s the neighborhood kids, and half the time it’s Niall and Harry who go to collect them from Tommy’s basement and sometimes stay for a round of Halo). Maurice pulls the grille shut behind the glass-fronted police station, the iron wheels creaking a little along the rusted tracks. He waves, and Niall and Harry wave back.

The police station smells, as ever, of Axe body spray, overcooked coffee, and tuna sandwiches. The twenty-six cops who work at the precinct had to sign a petition to beg the police chief, Paul, to stop bringing in tuna sandwiches, or at least to stop eating his lunch at his desk. It’s been two months and still the smell hasn’t gone away.

Niall and Harry drop the bank call case files onto their desks and are just taking their jackets off when Paul sticks his head out of the conference room and yells, “Boys! Get in here.”

Harry shoots Niall a look that Niall knows means, “Ooh, this’ll be interesting,” and also, “I hope we’re not going to lose our dinner reservation today.” Niall agrees, fervently, with both.

The conference room is all abuzz with all the guys and gals who work at the precinct. It’s an all-hands meeting, Niall notes. They haven’t had one of these since almost three months ago, when those pricks Louis and Liam landed the drugs bust assignment. Niall and Harry take their seats on the uncomfortable plastic chairs the police station scavenged from the high school just down the road and wait for Paul to flip off the overhead lights. He’s got a real-life projector, like from the 1980s or whatever, up and ready to go.

Harry very quietly hums the Beverly Hills Cop theme song under his breath, and Niall fights a smile.

“Okay, everyone,” Paul starts. Then, when everybody doesn’t fall silent, adds, “Shut up, please! Thank you. Listen up. Save your questions for after the briefing. Go ahead,” he nods at someone shrouded in shadow. They step forward, and Niall and Harry groan in unison. It’s Louis.

He smiles like a shark and folds his arms across his chest. “What are Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber doing here?” He asks, all of five feet tall and nothing but menace. Niall scowls and pushes Harry’s hand down when he goes to flip Louis the bird. He doesn’t actually want to get kicked out of the meeting. Just to make Louis miserable, if at all possible. “There aren’t any more donuts to eat?”

Harry tucks his hands neatly under his thighs and says, with all the sugar sweetness of his soft face and his warm smile, “That sounds like a real tough case, Lou. You should look into that.”

Louis smiles, only it doesn’t look so much like a smile as it does the expression of a man considering all the ways he can bend his powers of evil in their direction. Before he can say something monumentally snarky, Liam is putting a firm hand on his shoulder, settling him down and segueing into why they’re here in the first place.

Niall watches both of them totter their way to the front of the room, Harry’s hand slipping into Niall’s under the grey table that he’s sure are from the same high school, the board having to revamp the furniture a little over a year ago and chucking old furniture, and obviously, the police department jumped on the stellar opportunity. You’d think a bunch of grown adults are less rowdy than hormonal teenagers, but alas, they broke half of the flimsy tables two meetings in. Now, the chief has a penance for each miniscule act of vandalism. The amount of times Niall has had to pitch in cause of Harry’s klutzy self, well, at least they have an touched savings account.

Louis twists his hands behind his back, standing straight, and Liam pulls up the case study up on the projector. Thirwall who’s recently transferred in from the Hicksville branch dims the lights for a better view of the screen. Liam clears his throat and Grimshaw who’s in charge of the filing of paperwork groans, “C’mon, Payne, not all of us have all day to waste over this budding suspense. We got lives to get back to.”

Liam frowns, familiar to that of Ms. Charlotte’s, their next door neighbour, pug who Harry walks on Sundays, and starts off, “So, as you all must be aware my partner, Louis, and I have been working our ass off to get a lead on the drug case and last month -”

Grimshaw pipes up, again, not missing a beat, “No, not that your twatty boyfriend’s been parading around gloating in everyone’s face.” Harry snickers beside Niall at that, his body shaking as he busies himself to stifle the laugh, and there was a time. Early on, when they’d freshly started, that he’d thought he’d had have had a starry-eyed crush on Grimmy with his hair and impressive choice of wardrobe, but. He’d been wrong, yeah.

Paul grunts, “Shut up, let officer Payne speak.” And that is the last of his shenanigans, Liam delving into the case and how they’d thought they had found the original distributor, but last night there had been another incident and now they have a proper lead. All very interesting, all cutting too close to their dinner reservation.

Louis frustratingly sigh, hip bumping Liam and standing the intimidating podium that reaches just shy of his pectorals, “Basically, we need recruits, seeing as this case is proving harder to be solved on our own.”

Harry’s knee twitches under their joined hands, and before Niall can listen on he’s leaning in, his lips brushing the shell of his ear, “Do you think the twins are having a hard time cause Louis’ been busy trying to get Liam off behind the Stop & Shop supplies warehouse?”

They might’ve caught them red-handed a couple months back and Louis is still dreadful of the fact they’d tattle on them to their boss, they would never. Well, not yet. Getting off during work is highly unprofessional, why of course. Niall leans into Harry, “Maybe it’s like tantric,” Niall says knowingly. Under his breath, he goes on, “Look at his pinched face. Yeah, they’re holding off till they solve the case.” A new thought strikes him. “Reckon their dirty talk is, like, ‘Oh, yeah, babe, you cuffed that criminal so good. Ooh, yeah, give it to me like you gave it to that jammed parking meter. Yeah, baby.’”

Niall laughs to himself. “Mmhm,” Harry says, shifting in his seat.

“Oh, my God,” says Niall. Liam’s still nattering on about the case but suddenly Niall couldn’t be paid to listen. Well, he is paid, but still. “Is this - do you like that? Are you for real?”

“No,” says Harry, cross. “But maybe later, we...”

“I can’t believe,” Niall says. He’s torn between dismay and delight. He’s never done learning new things about Harry, which is the best part, really. Even if the more he learns about him the weirder the guy is.

Just because he can, he slides his palm down Harry’s thigh, and Harry hisses at that, jaw clenched, “Stop.” Niall tries, he really does, but his laughs comes out spluttering unhindered and loud enough to have the entire room quiet down, with much effort he pulls his eyes back to where Liam and Louis are, the shorter one’s eyebrows arched, and he’s saying, “Something funny, Officer Horan?”

“Not at all,” biting down his lower lip, and he can feel Harry shaking beside him, “Just thoroughly intrigued by the complexities of this case. Remarkable that you’ve managed to find a lead, if any, you know.”

“You’re mocking us,” Liam states, crossing his arms over his chest flexing his muscles a bit. Niall remembers learning about it in a psychology class he took, how people tend to put off a closed stature to reinstate an intimidating effect on their peers, friends in situations they most feel threatened. How very primitive.

“What makes you think so? You’ve only had this case - for how long again?” Niall blinks, knowing he’s pushing it. The room erupting into laughter. But, Harry’s already putting in his two cents, “Think it’s been well over a month, no?”

“Jesus fu-, I swear, you two -” Louis shifts to move, a scowl in place when Paul speaks up again, everyone promptly shutting up, “Enough!”

He trudges over to Liam and Louis and takes the case file, brushing past the two men and walking to Harry and Niall’s table - Niall’s hand dropping from where it was sitting Harry’s thigh instead curling his pinky around Harry’s. The Chief drops it on the table with a thud stating brusquely, “You lot seem to be having a right time getting on each other’s nerves. Think you’re good enough to crack the case, yeah?”

Harry raises his index finger to intervene, but Niall swats it down, “How about you two do just that then?”

“Excuse me?” Niall asks, and Paul stares him down, sturdy hands on his hips now, “You heard me.”

They have, so that’s what has Niall and Harry poring over everything in the case file on top of all the debriefing that the rest of the precinct officers are going through for the bust tonight. Niall can see why it’s not just a cut-and-dried bust, though. The people selling the drugs have been infiltrated actually annoyingly well by Louis, who smart-talked his way into a friendship with the drugpin’s daughter-in-law, but they don’t really know who they’re selling to yet. It’s just nice information to have before they even go in and try and capture the sellers at the site. It’ll tell them whether they’ve thought to bring backup, for one. And what kind of retribution they might be forced to expect.

Niall’s the close reader, the details guy, and Harry’s the one who comes up with scenarios. “Say it’s from Central America,” he muses. “Let’s make a deal so that one of us gets kidnapped. I’ve seen pictures of the beaches of Mexico. Beautiful.”

“So we don’t want it to be from one of the Central American drug rings,” he surmises. Harry wrinkles his nose so Niall takes that as a strong affirmative.

Louis chimes in, “Could be the Canadians, you know.”

Even Liam stares at him. The little glass bubble of the conference room feels very quiet with all the other officers outside, looking through the case file, and just them in here, trying to make sure they all go home safe. It’s a weird feeling if Niall thinks about it too hard, like when he’d driven Greg and Denise home from the hospital with Theo cradled in Denise’s arms, tiny and brand new. Like something so precious shouldn’t be entrusted to everyday people, even though people are what Niall loves and wants to protect.

“What?” Louis asks, defensive now. There’s a tired edge to it Niall’s never seen before, and he feels an unwanted little pang of sympathy for the guy. The series of plaques on the wall naming him, and not Niall or Harry, employee of the month stare down at him disapprovingly. _One day,_ Niall thinks.

Harry reaches over and cups the back of Niall’s neck, his long cool fingers as soothing as an icepack on his knee. “Maybe it’ll be the Canadians,” he agrees softly. “If one of them kidnaps you, then at least you’ve got socialized health care waiting for you.”

“Always looking at the bright side,” Niall tells Harry. He doesn’t mean it to come out quite so complimentary,  quite so soft, but. He thinks again of the ring at the back of his sock drawer and knows he really ought to bring it out, sooner or later.

“Listen, all we really need to know,” Liam sighs, “is that we’ve got each other’s backs out there. We’ve got the jump on them - Louis and I have made sure of that - so it should be fast and neat. Alright?” He levels them all a serious look. He sounds, annoyingly, like Paul.

Well. Liam would be easier to work under than Louis, anyway.

Harry’s fingers dip under Niall’s collar, rolling the pads of his fingers over the bone at the top of Niall’s neck. “‘Course,” says Harry. Easy. Of course it is.

“And we’ll take employee of the month along with it,” Niall adds, just for the way Louis’s face flushes.

\--

Niall fusses with the velvet box in his hands sitting in the driving seat of the car, opening it and closing it again before looking at the band, it has a small stud on it, an amethyst to go along with Harry’s birth month and it is terribly cheesy but. It’s Harry. He deserves all the grand cheesy proposals that oughta be in a rom-com that he readily cries over every darn weekend. He’s lost in thought that he doesn’t even realizes Harry’s pulling the passenger door open balancing to containers and plastic one with cans of coke.

Niall fumbles to hide the box, pushing it in the pocket of his jacket, and then giving Harry the biggest smile, a little nervy if. Harry pays no heed to his state of mess until he’s looking at him, “What has you wounded?”

Niall shrugs, reaching to grab his container of Gyro, and lifting the lid, “Nothing.” Stuttering at the next words, “Why’d you say so?”

Harry pauses undoing his own lid, bringing his hand to Niall’s, ducking a little to get a proper look at his face, “Are you stressed about the case? You know we’ll be fine, right? We always are.”

There have been rare instances when he’s been entirely sure of his decisions, and not made them in haste or in a rush of adrenaline, and those he considers to be his best ones. Like when he’d decided to join the academy because protecting his loved one’s and those of others seemed the simplest and most innate thing to him, and kissing Harry after the first round of duty in the precinct stairwell was another, and then walking past the jeweler's three months ago and spotting the band that yelled his name and only his was one more. Uncertainty comes along with everything, with every chance you take, and somehow in Niall’s case it has been working in his favor.

So, he nods, believing in his partner’s words and a steady thrum in his heart says that the right time will come around sooner than later. Soon, he hopes, feeling the box in his pocket before taking the fork from Harry.

Harry picks over his falafel like a bird of prey while he waits for Niall to let him eat Niall’s food. Niall doesn’t know why they don’t just change their order, but there’s something soothing to the predictability.

Harry’s mouth is stuffed full of spicy rice and lamb when Niall ventures, “So, about that dirty talk thing -” and he almost starts choking. He sends Niall a glare with tears streaming down his puttylike face. It’s not very effective.

“Don’t even start,” he says, with a tone that’s perfectly warm.

“Oh, okay,” Niall says. Waits a second, just to build up the anticipation. “But, like -”

“I was thinking we could try it later,” Harry says. “You know it’s important to keep things new in the bedroom.”

“The bedroom,” Niall scoffs, because they’ve absolutely necked in the back of the cruiser, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in their guest room, on the living room floor. Harry does that thing he does when his mom comes around where he pretends to be a little saint. It always makes Niall want to mess up his curls.

Harry plows on, “You know, till we get too old to shag and we just bicker all the time.”

Niall’s taken aback for a moment. They spend so much time sat in a car together that sometimes Niall forgets his busted Jeep isn’t the police cruiser, that there’s no reason not to unclip his seatbelt and turn to face Harry. They’re safely parked in front of their building, which overlooks the river, and beyond that, nothing but hills. Harry always talks about how weird it is that the city gives way to nothing like that, but Niall likes it. Here’s where people live, here’s where they don’t. “You got plans to grow old with me?” Niall asks.

“Assuming the wonder twins don’t kill us first,” says Harry. The smile on his face is all flushed pleasure, like he’s pleased with Niall’s reaction, and. It’s so easy to make him look that way, really.

“I can’t wait to finish this case tonight,” says Niall.

“For the employee of the month thing,” Harry nods sagely.

Niall shrugs. “That,” he says. “And so we can get it on.”

“Get it on?” Harry repeats. A smile unfurls across his face. “What is this, a 90s cop movie?”

“If only,” Niall says dreamily, and Harry laughs.

\--

They arrive at the compound/warehouse around ten which is late enough for the friday night traffic to be clearing out, parking right behind Louis and Liam’s cruiser, a little ways from the front gate. They get out making little to no sound, and Niall’s busy loading his gun, checking again to see if the safety is on, when Harry comes round to stand next to him. He can see Liam and Louis doing the same, checking over their own ammunitions.

“Hey, listen,” Harry starts, scudding the heel of his shoe on the dirt. Niall looks up briefly, making eye contact, and then back at his gun, “Listening.”

“No, like proper listen,” Harry whinges, and Niall sighs finally facing him. He stuffs the gun into its holster secure against his hip. “If you’re gonna tell me another stupid gunpowder fact, save it for the dirty talk,” he grins, but then Harry’s curling his hand around the back of Niall’s neck. The pad of his thumb strokes Niall’s jaw, the bristling stubble itching his skin, “Not to sound sappy, but. I love you, yeah?”

Niall swallows around his heart, the same one that is beating a mile per minute, “It’s a drug bust, Haz, we’re not tracking down the Zodiac Killer.”

Harry frowns, bringing their foreheads together, “Shut up, will you?” Then he’s kissing him, and Niall wants to tell him off at how incredibly stupid he’s being, but, this isn’t a first. The first time they’d done a robbery chase Harry hadn’t handcuffed the guy until Niall had told him the little nick on his arm was in fact from running quickly past the wooden door and not some gunshot. There is an underlying paranoia to the job, and he can never blame Harry for feeling it. Mostly, because half the time he’s in the same boat weighing it down.

They pull apart, short on air, when Louis walks over to them, “Are you lovebirds done making a scene? Also, don’t think I won’t be telling the chief about how _unprofessional_ you were being. Amateurs.”

Harry keeps his hand on Niall’s jaw, further making him acutely aware of the little to no distance between them, and narrows his eyes at Louis, “Oh, right, yes, some of us are so far beyond a simple kiss that we’re busy giving bj’s right in Paul’s office.”

An expression of horror masks Louis’ face, mortified, “How’d yo-”

“Please your groans are close to a mewling racoon, anyone with ears can tell it is you,” Harry says, offhandedly. “Boss’s office? Kinky,” Niall tacks on, looking past Louis at Liam who’s equally annoyed.

“I swear on me mum and my troop of siblings if I don’t find dirt on you, Styles,” Louis threatens , but is quickly cut off by Liam, the level-headed of the two.

Clearing his throat he says, “Okay, if you two have quite finished we need to go inside, and you need to be ready to infiltrate the site.”

“Infiltrate the site,” Harry murmurs, the corners of his lips twitching. Even Niall’s a little amused, but not so much that he’s thrown off his game. They’ve all been trained for this, and it’s an exciting challenge to put that training to use. Even Harry sidles a few inches away, enough so that his presence isn’t distracting. Isn’t right at the forefront of Niall’s mind, where Harry usually is.

They and the rest of the precinct have this warehouse surrounded. With Louis and Liam mic’ed up and on the inside, it should be a small matter of incapacitating the drug vendors’ vehicles upon arrival and apprehending the suspects at the time the deal is made. Ideally. Assuming everything goes to plan.

And if everything doesn’t go to plan, Niall and half of the precinct have walkie talkies to stay in touch with each other, the comms team in their creeper van have Louis’s and Liam’s signal, and they’ve all got their Kevlar vests on. Niall’s palms are slick with sweat and anticipation, and he wants Paul to give the marching order, already. He wants the signal to blast through the rear entrance to this abandoned shipyard and fling himself into the center of it all like he’s young again and diving for the soccer ball with no mind to his knee. There’s something silly and entropic about it and, past that, something like freedom.

Harry, catching his eye sideways, feels the same thing. Niall’s speeding heart accelerates.

For the station’s most exciting operation since the water hydrants all up and down main street blew up from too much water pressure last summer, everything stays eerily quiet. Minutes tick towards hours and Niall’s muscles start to lock up, he’s holding himself so tense, but he wants to be ready.

The comms team sends in periodic reports that Louis and Liam are holding the course, and no trucks have pulled in to freight the car away. For all the ado that came with it - including cancelling their dinner plans - it’s starting to feel like something of a bust. And not the good kind. That’s right about when all hell breaks loose.

It starts with a single gunshot from inside the warehouse. Niall’s ears ring in the ensuing silence like the whole world’s just caught its breath, and then there is a strained voice buzzing across their walkie talkies asking for backup. It doesn’t even really sound like Louis, his voice is pitched so high, so fraught.

Niall’s hand around the gun tightens. Seconds is all it takes and Paul’s asking them to split up and take their own back up teams inside to find Louis and Liam. “Get a hold of the situation while we tighten the forces over the perimeter of the building so no one can leave,” he orders. Niall spares Harry a look - not a _last_ look, those aren’t allowed - and they nod to each other, like Harry’s just popping out for yoga practice and fresh fruit on a Sunday morning. And then they’re splitting up, each of them with a team of precinct officers who suddenly look a lot younger, and a lot more afraid.

They walk past the doors, and split down the corridors that go left and right, Niall choosing left carefully treading across the grungy building. There was eerie silence followed right after the gun sound and now he’s left looking for mastermind behind this entire bust, he’s a little ways down the sound of leaky pipes guiding side by side him when his team catches up to him, their vests on and them fully armed.

There is is window opening without any glass and a foyer of sorts that he can look out at, he peers over the sill to see shards of glass and then he spots a sliver of dark hair hiding behind the pillar, “Duck!”

The team does as it’s told, Pinnock shuffling by his side, waiting for him to heed any other orders, and just as he picks up his three shots are fired his way. Thankfully, he spotted two more people, and Niall counts a total of four one being held hostage - Liam.

“Okay,” he whispers, making sure that everyone can hear him, but he’s not loud enough for his voice to echo. His brain racing to collect all the little pieces he’d gathered, “I saw 3 shooters and Officer Payne is being held hostage, the tables lined in the center have cases and I’m guessing that is where the deal was being made. According to previous intel the business was run previously by two older man, closer to Paul’s age, and the shooters I saw were younger - closer to early 20’s. I need you guys to pull up the shields and carefully encircle the perimeter. Any negotiations will be held off until further notice.”

Perrie nods, and Andy and her move towards the door, Leigh and James following in his step, they raid into the open foyer and the shooters tussle around to run, one of them daring to shoot at Edwards, but Andy pulls the shield in front of her and before they know it they’re surrendering, Liam being pushed forward, a boy with feathery brown hair pleading, “We just want our cut. We didn’t want a fight. Nixon said he’d pay us, we promise.”

Niall’s half-listening, untying the ropes around Liam’s hands and then the cloth around his mouth. Liam heaves out a quick, “Louis ran after the guys who started this mess. The kids here were working for him, they revolted against him because he wasn’t paying a fair share to them.”

“Where are they now? Where’d they go Liam?” Niall’s hurrying to ask, his walkie still silent from any feedback on Harry’s end. He’s trying his very best to not think of him on the other side of the warehouse.

“I don’t know,” Liam says. The longer he talks the fuzzier his eyes look, the more blood leaks out of the gash at his hairline. He looks like he’s taken a tumble round and round the dryer, he’s so banged up. It makes Niall’s stomach crimp anxiously. “We just came in, like we always do, and then they were on us. Figured we’d shape up on Nixon’s side, so they -”

“Okay,” says Niall, not ungently. Just, if he has to listen to Liam talk about a bunch of drug-peddlers roughing up him and Louis, he thinks he might just blast out of his skin. “Where’d they go, hm? Which direction did you see Louis running off in?”

Liam points down a hallway running toward the rear of the warehouse. Good, because it’s not very near where Harry oughta be. Bad, because it’s not where any of the other teams were sent, either. “Niall,” Liam starts.

“Got it,” Niall says. “I’ll take care of him. One of you lot, Albert, stay with him, yeah? We’ll be back in a jiff.”

The thing about adrenaline is that it only drowns out pain for so long, and then it just heightens every sensation. Your brain under fire can handle only so much, so everything becomes very visceral and hard and shape, like when your breath fans out in condensation over glass. Everything the brain perceives comes off hitting something hard and unforgiving. Niall can hear his heart beating in his ears, hear every ringing footstep of his down the dusty unused hallway. Even his breath slices out of lungs clean and whistling.

He raises his fist - _slow, stop_ \- and draws to a panting halt on the rotten wooden loading dock the abandoned warehouse sits on. Niall spots one of the precinct’s undercover cars just a couple dozen yards away, but it seems like the two officers that should’ve been in it have either run into the warehouse, or somewhere else.

Niall’s starting to suspect they’ve gone somewhere else. He glances back at his team, at their familiar, somewhat careworn faces. Moonlight casts the dock heading back toward the shore in deep shadow, and it feels unnecessarily like the haunted houses Greg dragged Niall to back when he was too small to understand they weren’t real.

“Stay together,” he tells his team. “Stay calm. Understood?”

“Affirmative,” Pinnock murmurs, so off they set.

They round the far side of the warehouse and find a waiting eighteen wheeler with the back pushed open, just waiting for its cargo. Niall gestures for the team to split up and surround it. He wonders where the rest of the precinct’s officers have gotten to. Where Harry is.

Niall’s the first into the back of the empty eighteen wheeler. His steps are soft and quiet on the ringing metal surface and he counts his breaths in threes to keep it slow and calm. His heartbeat is rabbiting all over the place.

He toes the body before he sees it, and only shock keeps him from letting out a scream. Niall crouches down for a better look and waves Edwards in behind him. “It’s one of Nixon’s guys,” she says, cool and calm as ever. He’s been gagged with his own socks, which can’t be very pleasant, and his hands and ankles are tied. The rest of the truck is totally empty; no drugs, and nobody selling or buying ‘em.

Niall’s just trotting out of the trailer when he hears Harry’s familiar voice, “Niall!” And it’s like telepathy, or long practice, Harry kicking a soccer ball toward Niall’s vulnerable crotch and letting him know about it with a split second to go. Only this time Harry’s not thrown him an egg or a soccer ball or the remote. There’s a black suburban tearing down the pike, headed past Niall and his team, away from all of this. And if they don’t stop them now, they probably won’t ever.

Harry’s voice the only thing in Niall’s brain, he takes a knee and aims. His first shot goes wide, his second even wider, but with the third he catches a tire. The car veers dangerously toward the edge of the dock and screams to a halt, metal and rubber shrieking loud against the night. The rest of officers round the car encircling it and iterate the routine, “You have the right to remain silent.”

Niall’s still holding up the gun, the smoke dissipated into the frosty air, now, he can smell the release of the bullet can feel the achy muscles in his palms from intensity of the shot. But then Harry’s pushing down on his arm and coming to stand beside him, and when Niall turns he sees a small cut over his forehead, he reaches to rub at it, the blood dried off now, “You reckon, I could get away with being called Officer Potter, now?”

“Will you marry me?” Niall blurts, feels like the question’s been suctioned from the bottom of his lungs. Here’s Harry, with blood on him. Here’s Harry, vibrant and alive and smiling like Niall’s just asked him if he wanted to go visit Theo and Denise for the weekend, and he loves him. “I’ve a ring,” he adds lamely. The more the adrenaline fades the more uncertain he is that Harry will say yes. Some people just don’t get married. Niall was only hoping they weren’t some people.

“I know,” says Harry, still with that same goofy smile on his face. “I saw it in the sock drawer when I was looking for my favorite hat.” And then, as if to put Niall out of his mercy, “The answer’s yes, of course. If you take my last name.”

“If I -” Niall stops.

Harry’s already looped his arm around Niall’s neck like some kind of octopus tentacle wrangling him in. “We could trade last names!” Harry says. “Officers Harry Horan and Niall Styles reporting for duty. Doesn’t that have a ring to it?”

“For God’s sakes,” Niall murmurs. He turns in the circle of Harry’s arm and kisses him right on the mouth, only pulling apart to catch a breath from the last of the adrenaline trickling out of his system like his dad’s old truck running out of gas. He feels like he’s just run one of those Boston Marathons he’d taken part in when he was younger. He cups the back of Harry’s neck. “You can go by anything you want, love,” and Harry grins at that. “Oh, wait, where’s Louis?” Niall adds as an afterthought.

Harry jerks his head towards the warehouse where Mark is holding Louis up, a little scuffed up, but mostly fine, “Saved his life.”

Louis growls, muttering vile profanities, “Shut up, you’re lucky I told you they were getting away or you’d be busy spiritually enlightening his henchmen.”

“Yoga is good for the soul!” Harry protests, and Niall links their fingers together. Brings their joined hands to his lips and kisses the back of Harry’s.

\--

Niall tosses the jeep keys on the little table they have set up right in the entrance, the hallway opening up to their living room and attached kitchen, toeing off his shoes and hanging his jacket on the hook.

“You should’ve seen it, Ni, I went completely James Bond ducking and rolling to dodge the bullet and shoving Louis out of the line of the shot,” Harry rattles on, toeing off his shoes in the middle of the corridor which Niall picks up and neatly places on the mat they’ve set under the little table. Harry’s working to take off his socks, pausing to turn, “It was fucking rad, Nixon was all surprised.”

He chucks the socks on the floor which Niall picks up and goes to throw in their room, moves to take off his own, Harry still going off about his story, loud enough that Niall can hear him, “And you know what I was thinking the whole time? When Louis looked at me wounded and thankful?”

Niall yells back, “What?” He slips out of his black polo and tosses that into the hamper too, sweat clinging to his body from running around all day. He should probably take a shower before getting into bed, and while he’s contemplating he doesn’t even realize Harry’s standing in the door, leaning against the jamb. “I was thinking I wish you were there.”

“I was there, you nutter,” Niall says. Harry rolls his eyes so hard it looks like it hurts. Niall’s waiting with a smile when Harry’s eyeballs come back around.

“Very funny,” says Harry. His gaze catches on Niall - Niall’s stomach, or maybe his arms, or maybe his chest - with the same look that Harry uses when he’s interrogating a suspect. It’s a little creepy. Niall’s awful proud of him.

“Look like a maniac,” he says fondly.

“I am,” Harry says. His face and voice go all serious, like he’s got to tell Niall he clogged the shower drain again. “Arrest me, Officer Horan.”

Niall swallows around the saliva building up in his mouth, scratching at his forearm, “Come again?” Harry smiles, those dimples of his dipping into his cheeks, he can tells he’s chewing the inside of his cheek. He trudges over, painfully slow, and leans forward, his fingers fiddling with the handcuffs hooked onto Niall’s belt loop.

“I’m a serious threat to society,” Harry says, with that same solemn note in his voice. “If you don’t stop me, I’m going to have everyone - including _you_ \- do yoga at the park with me every morning at dawn. And you’ll have to _like_ it.”

Niall shudders. It’s partly a joke, partly not. Dawn is _early._ He swallows. The thing about Harry is that he’s so goddamn earnest all the time. He cuddles up to just about everyone he meets and he hasn’t come across a child that he doesn’t want to cradle to his chest and he always means it, like some kind of broken love dispenser in a Willy Wonka Factory of chocolate and goodness. It makes Niall’s heart ache and, right about now, it makes him really, really want to touch Harry’s soft face. His hand. Something. Just to know he’s there. “You’re right,” Niall says, watching for the way Harry starts to smile when Niall squares his feet and puffs out his chest. “That’s practically criminal, that is.”

“There we go,” Harry smiles. He promptly holds his wrists out. “Go on, then, arrest me.”

Niall’s halfway to doing what he says ‘cos it’s Harry saying it when some other functioning part of his brain kicks in, and he pauses with the metal loops just going loose around Harry’s bony wrists. “Wait, you’ll say if, like -”

“Yes, yes, we have a safeword,” says Harry impatiently. “It’s enchiladas. Remember? From that time.”

Niall blushes scarlet. From that time - well, anyway, sometimes Mexican food has a real effect on his digestive system. It’s not very sexy. He tries very hard not to think of it. “How about we both not remember that time?”

“Fair’s square,” Harry says, nonsensically. He nudges Niall gently with his knee. “C’mon then, Officer,” he says, and blinks up from under his lashes. “Cuff me.”

Niall knows there’s a blush crawling up his bare chest, over his throat, staining his cheeks like a tea bag in steaming hot water. He fights the urge to make a joke or say something to make Harry break away with a laugh and come at him the normal way. It’s not that Niall can’t imagine Harry being perfectly serious, it’s that he is, that he wants - well, Niall. So much.

He even agreed to marry him.

“Behind your back,” Niall says. His voice is rough from nerves but Niall can see the way Harry’s skin actually breaks out in goosebumps. He’s slow to obey, so Niall helps him along, and Harry shivers again. Niall can hear his breath in their quiet apartment. Feels like it’s the first time he’s really felt himself breathe since the sun set.

Niall’s gentler about cuffing Harry than he is a usual suspect. He might be game for a little roleplaying but this is still _Harry_ , as much as that frustrates Harry himself. “C’mon,” Harry says, impatient, while Niall tightens the cuffs around his wrist. He arches his back till he brushes up against Niall’s chest, his hair smelling of hair wax and sweat. It’s a potent combination. “I’ll enchilada you,” Harry says, soft, just the edge of laughter to his words. “Promise.”

So Niall experimentally twists his arm a bit to get his wrist in the right position. Cuffs too loose, the perp can escape. Cuffs too tight, you can damage the ligaments in the wrist and even the perp’s shoulders. “Makes me feel like a rookie again,” Niall laughs.

“Ooh, I can be your first bust,” says Harry happily. He waits for Niall to put his hand on his shoulder, Harry’s skin soft and cool as ever, before he starts moving toward the bedroom. Then he rocks on his heels. “Wait,” he says, in his normal voice. Then, in what Niall thinks might be a shoddy echo of his own Brooklyn accent, he says, “You forgot to frisk me.”

“You’re hardly wearing anything,” Niall points out.

Harry shoots him a pointed look over his shoulder. “I could be,” he says, with a motion toward his boxers, “ _packing,_ Ni - Officer Horan.”

And suddenly it’s easy to play along, to indulge Harry, to indulge himself. Niall’s always liked making Harry happy. He pats Harry down not unlike he’d do any perp, but Niall gives himself extra time to feel out the muscles in Harry’s calves, the way his thighs quiver under Niall’s palms, the flat of his stomach. Harry shivers again and tips his head back onto Niall’s shoulder, letting out a happy little sigh. Niall’s kissing down his throat without another thought, doesn’t need to be prompted to get his mouth on Harry whenever he gets the chance. Niall lathes over the muscle at the bottom of Harry’s neck with his tongue, and then he sets his teeth in.

Harry jumps and comes down with a groan, a lazy flush spreading over his face. “Corporal punishment,” he says, sounding unutterably pleased. “Don’t think that’s quite allowed, officer.”

“For you, I’ll make an exception,” Niall says. He puts his hand on Harry’s shoulder again and Harry starts, automatically, toward their bed. Niall doesn’t let him go, though, and Harry stops, his wrists twisting thoughtlessly against the cuffs. He’ll have bruises, Niall thinks, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Here’s fine,” Niall says, his voice hoarse again. Niall presses Harry against the blank span of wall between their room and the laundry room. Harry lets out a little gasp when his bare front hits the cold wall, so Niall holds him more firmly. He waits for Harry’s little nod before he sets his teeth to the spot behind Harry’s ear, one hand on his fleshy hip and the other busy pushing his underwear down.

Harry flat-out moans when Niall snakes his hand down his underwear. Niall's known Harry so long and so well that he thinks he could probably navigate his body if they were inside out and backwards, which is a horribly gross thought now that he's thinking about it, but. But Harry arches his back into Niall's chest and grinds himself against the wall and Niall wouldn't take it back, not for anything. 

"Wait," Harry pants, when Niall's slicking him up with precome for a nice wet hand job. "Can you do me? Up against the wall like this." 

"Not without lube," Niall says firmly. Harry responds by rubbing his little firm ass against Niall's groin, and it's not like Niall had forgotten himself, but he's taken aback by how good it feels. By how much he'd wanted it without even realizing. "Ah," Niall says, catches himself just in time. He clears his throat. "I'll call the shots around here, thanks, perp." 

Harry's dick leaks at that, like Harry crying in great sobbing spurts every single time they watch the Titanic. Harry's knuckles keep bumping against the bottom of Niall's stomach, and he shouldn't be surprised when Harry suddenly uncurls his hands from fists to rake his nails through Niall's happy trail, but somehow he is, and then he's coming in stripes over the curve of Harry's spine and the top of his ass. Niall leans against Harry. He knocks him into the wall with enough force that Harry lets out a little shout and then Niall's hand in his pants is wet, and Harry's gone boneless against the wall. 

Niall's content just to lean his head on Harry's sweat-sticky shoulder forever, probably, but Harry tickles Niall's belly with his cuffed fingertips again, and that reminds him. His eyes closed, Harry says, "If I'm not mistaken, this is my fiance's stomach." He ghosts his up, down, presses the pad of his index finger against the bony nub of Niall's hip. "It's this one, Officer," Harry says dramatically. "This left hipbone is the reason I fell in love with you, I swear it." 

"You're a mess," Niall says fondly. He manages to unstick himself from Harry enough to step back. He means it literally and metaphorically. Niall hasn't wiped his hand off yet so he shrugs and wipes it off on Harry's chest. Harry's pupils dilate, for reasons Niall's mouth goes dry to contemplate. 

"I'm tired," Harry admits instead. He shrugs his shoulders a little, and he looks like something out of a painting. Not like one of them ancient sculptures where everything was perfect, but one of those paintings of people the painter really loved. The round muscles of his shoulders and the slope of his chest to his belly and the way his face looks in the half-light. Harry walks around looking like someone loved a whole lot. Niall's whole chest aches. "D'you reckon I could sleep in these?" Harry asks meditatively. 

Niall rolls his eyes. Kisses Harry again, just because he can. "Nah. We can, like. Do this again tomorrow, if you like." 

"And the next day," Harry intones the whole time Niall's uncuffing him, running a shower, pulling the blankets back on the bed. "And the next day, and the next day, and the next day." 

"Yeah," Niall just says, with his chin tucked over Harry's shoulder and his hand pressed over his heart. "You're right." 

\--

The next morning Niall stops at Dunkins to get himself a coolatta and Harry a Vanilla Chai, getting a side of cream cheese bagels - poppy for himself, everything for Harry - and makes his way back to the car where Harry's busy snoring into the head rest, curled up in his seat. There is a weird lurch in his chest, and then it blossoms into a soothing warmth spreading to the tips of his fingers, and he couldn't be happier, he reckons. 

They arrive at the precinct a little after 8, Harry strolling in first and Niall disposing their trash into the bin at the front, saying hello to a few officers who're loitering near the entrance. He's just entering the offices when he hears Harry calling out to him, a rush in his steps as he strides over to him, "Niall, look!"

On the cork board, along with the missing sign taped unceremoniously with duct tape, there is a picture of the two of them, a plaque with their names. He can't help but smile looking back at Harry, "We did it?"

"We did it!" Harry cheers, wrangling his sinewy arms around Niall's neck, smacking a kiss to his forehead. A disapproving clicking of teeth interrupts them to which Harry turns in Niall's arms peering at Louis and Liam standing behind them, "Don't let it get to your heads. We're still the  _best_."

Liam shakes his head, nudging Louis forward a bit, "He means to say congratulations. You deserve it."

Niall grins, tightening his arms around Harry's waist, "Thanks."

Louis smiles at that, and Niall wonders if this means they're friends now, but he doesn't get time to ponder cause they're being called into the Chief's office right after. Another day, another case, that's how it goes. 


End file.
